# Date: 1921-08-12

M. I. Kalinin — an outstanding figure of the Communist Party and 
the Soviet state, party member since 1898. Active participant in 
the October armed uprising of 1917 in Petrograd. Following 
the October socialist revolution — city head, then — commissar of 
municipal economy of Petrograd. From 1919 — Chairman of the 
All-Russian Central Executive Committee, from 1922 — Chairman 
of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, from 1938 — 
Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. 
From 1919 — member of the Central Committee, from 1926 — member 
of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the VKP(b).

2 On July 22, 1921, at a session of the Council of Labor and Defense, 
a draft decree was approved concerning the organ of the Council of 
Labor and Defense — the newspaper "Economic Life" — and the ap-
pointment of G. I. Krumin as responsible editor of the newspaper.

TELEGRAM TO PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEES

Telegram

Petrograd, Pskov, Novgorod, Moscow, Tver, Yaroslavl, Rybinsk, 
Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Vladimir, Ryazan, Kaluga, Tula, Smolensk, 
Gomel, Vitebsk, Bryansk, Kursk, Orel, Tambov, Voronezh, 
Ekaterinburg, Ufa, Cherepovets, Vologda, Severodvinsk, Kostroma, 
Vyatka, Perm, Nizhny, Omsk, Penza.

To the Provincial Executive Committee, copies to the Provincial 
Trade Union Council, Provincial Land Department, Provincial Food 
Committee, Provincial Cheka.

Despite a series of repeated directives from the highest party 
organs as well as Soviet organs regarding the necessity of the 
speediest and most complete surrender of winter grain seeds from 
Soviet farms, reports continue to arrive from the localities indicating 
the desire of certain provinces: first — to conceal their sown area, 
second — to indicate lower yields, third — to attempt to increase 
the number of consumers in the reported data, and finally, fourth — 
to presume the issuance of all manner of bonuses, completely un-
provided for by any regulations and reducing to nothing the quantities 
that should be surrendered by them. It is proposed that under per-
sonal strict responsibility before the court of the revolutionary tri-
bunal, the head of the provincial land department and each individual 
collective farm and attached economy surrender in the most urgent 
order what is due from them according to the apportionment of seed 
grain. Any delay will be considered a grave crime and will be punished 
with all the severity of the revolutionary epoch. The head of the pro-
vincial Cheka is proposed to supervise the actual receipt of this order 
and its execution.

Report execution separately to the head of the provincial executive 
committee and head of the provincial Cheka*.

August 12, 1921
Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars Lenin**

Printed from a typewritten copy, 
signed and supplemented 
by V. I. Lenin

TELEGRAM TO ORENBURG:
TO THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE'S COMMISSARS AND PEOPLE'S 
COMMISSARIAT OF FOOD OF THE KIRGHIZ (KAZAKH) 
ASSR, TO T. M. PONOMARENKO,
AUTHORIZED REPRESENTATIVE OF THE PEOPLE'S 
COMMISSARIAT OF FOOD

[1921, August 12]

I am compelled to state that from the second half of June until now 
you have failed to achieve accurate fulfilment of the complete combat 
assignment of the Council of Labor and Defense of June 21, com-
municated to you by the People's Commissariat of Food on June 22 
under No. 79758. The situation that has developed compels me to 
take personal direction of the fulfilment of your combat assignment 
of the Council of Labor and Defense, to control your work daily in 
all its stages. I order the establishment from August 15 of regular 
dispatch to Moscow, addressed to the People's Commissariat of Food, 
of no fewer than two train routes per day, not less than thirty freight 
cars in each consist.

To the train routes are assigned the designation of Council of 
People's Commissars routes, with special numbering established, 
beginning with the thirty-seventh. Within a three-day period I obligate 
comrade Ponomarenko to report the following information, with which 
you should have constantly been in possession as material for general 
direction in the execution of the combat assignment of the Council 
of Labor and Defense: 1) by which railway section, in what quantity 
to each, does the grain intended for fulfilling the combat assignment 
gravitate; 2) how much of the grain gravitating to each section is 
located at and near the stations, at what average distance is the re-
maining grain; 3) how is the cartage transport proceeding, what 
measures have been taken to maintain the quantity at the stations, 
guaranteeing the undelayed execution of my requirement for regular 
dispatch of not fewer than two train routes per day; 4) is loading 
assured by labour force, by freight cars suitable for grain transport, 
what have you undertaken, what has the Siberian Department of 
Communications undertaken***

* The final phrase was supplemented by V. I. Lenin.
** The telegram was also signed: "Deputy Commissar of Agriculture Ivan Teodorovich, 
for the People's Commissariat of Food Frumkin, Deputy Chairman of the All-Russian Cheka Unshlikht."
*** Siberian Department of Communications.